He has taken an immense risk – broken a great taboo – and for this he has been rewarded, quite unexpectedly, with a crushing victory - about 70%-30% - over his rival for the nomination, Alain Juppé.

More than four million French men and women voted in the primary, so the result is an astonishing demonstration of confidence in Fillon. There is one inescapable conclusion: he now has very good chance to become the next president of France.

But it is still only a chance.

Fillon’s great leap into the dark has been to attack the French postwar...